In the midst of the desert.

[Mostafa]

 

 

Hello everyone. Today, I inshallah have dedicated myself to respond to a crucial email. Samuel Wilkins is a dear friend from the UK. On December the third, 2014, he sent me the following note.

 

“Hello Mostafa,

 

I was wondering if I could please pick your brain.  In the UK, Christians are discouraged from talking about their faith, yet Muslims are not.  For example,

a girl was forbidden to talk about why she believed in the birth of Jesus because the teacher said it might cause offense.  Whereas a Muslim or Atheist

can talk about their beliefs freely.  Do you think that is a double standard, and what is your opinion on this?  Thank you”.

 

Thank you Samuel for reporting this to me, and I apologize for responding belatedly.  I just saw your message earlier this week. I apologize again. Well, I would like to begin by praising and glorifying Allah Almighty. I consecutively would ask Allah glory be to Him to divinely keep sending His noble salutations upon the seal prophet and messenger, the mercy for mankind and its ultimate concessionary, Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), his blessed household, his graciously unfaltering disciples   and all who unfeignedly follow their rightly guided footsteps until the day of Resurrection.

 

Religion has constantly been the source of spiritual felicity and paragon. But recently, religion has unfortunately been hijacked for irrelevant and even despicable aims. But is it passably tolerable to prevent religious groups from expressing their perspective or to act discriminatively toward them? Samuel considered this a double standard disposition. Well I personally think it goes beyond this minimum allegation. It incites religious hatred. It justifies the usage of religious bigotry and prejudice. You may disagree with a particular religious group. You may criticize their doctrinal tennets and essence but, it’s utterly intolerable to either desecrate or demonize a religious zeal for political interests. I may repudiate the Zionist movement but I will never agree with demonizing Judaism so to speak. I may stridently  criticize Christianity on theological basis but, I will never tolerate preventing a Christian missionary from expressing what he believes. I just can’t stop cherishing the Christian presence here in Egypt. I just can’t stop cherishing the beautiful coexistence that we are truly blessed with. I am here neighbored with Coptics and in the nearby major square, there is a brilliantly magnificent Church. It’s known here as the red Church. It’s the primarily visible sign which I typically use to guide the taxi driver to my home. I am quite satisfied with firmly maintaining a warmly  respectful friendship with Christians, whether domestically or overseas. I am a friend with Michael, Mark and Peter. Those are my local Christian friends. Well in addition to that, I have got many Christian friends abroad. I have Alasdair King  and Samuel Willkins in the UK, I have Doris and Chris in Germany. I have Pia, Paul and Alison Mueller in the United States. I have Sarah Jevnikar and Alan Conway in Canada. I am also proud to announce that my fiance and inshallah, my future spouse, she originally comes from a plainly Christian upbringing. She is a sincerely practicing Muslim now but, her family and relatives are Christians. These are decisive facts about me and I am truly proud of them. 

 

                                 I think that gravely repudiates the false accusation which fallaciously proclaim that I am in hostile disposal with Christians. I particularly bear in mind the significant coalition between interfaith dialog and the relationship with people of various religions. Fortunately, I met with people from different religions and traditions. We discuss religious matters and quite naturally, we agree and disagree. I believe that conducting a constant arrangement of interfaith counselling is a quite healthy phenomena  to encourage and advocate for a mutual religious tolerance, discernment and deference. I truly believe in the crucial importance of teaching school kids and college adult students a brief overview about world religions including Bahaism. Furthermore, I truly believe in the crucial significance of desegregating religion classes for scrutiny amongst students who variously represent a wide range of religious and traditional backgrounds. I inshallah intend to release a brilliant generation which is sufficiently adequate to elicit, scrutinize and determine religious and philosophical pursuits. In this contemporary phase we currently inhabit, there are interchangeable thoughts, beliefs and concepts. Thus, we as Muslims are obliged to thoroughly cope with tackling these challenges in a wisely open-minded fashion. One of these longstanding challenges is what the science teacher may attempt to instigate in the mind of the Muslim kid. He may talk to him about evolution, the proof of the existence of a deity and so on. Please, don’t be irritated with this. You ought to deal with the subject so wisely. Don’t flee from answering his questions. So if my son asked me about the decisive evidence which undoubtedly indicate for the precise existence of a deity, what shall I do? Well basically, you ought to walk him through testable evidence. You ought to openly discuss such matters with him. If you don’t know how to answer his questions properly, you should  make him notice a sign of that. You should be involved with him in a scientific research to answer these questions decently. Similarly, if a Christian missionary attempted to approach your kid with Christianizing  thoughts, don’t be so offended. Even if they attempted to provoke nefarious thoughts in his head, you have got to predominantly be scrupulous  in confronting this. As Muslims, we have nothing to be ashamed of. Islam deals with everything and it has answers for all possible questions. Do you know what is our actual crisis as Muslims? We stopped contributing to the intellectual community awhile ago. Therefore, we ended up suffering of enormous ignorance which naturally led to imperious disposition. It also led to close-mindedness, radicalism and even terrorism. We are diminished by world nations because, despite our globally disseminated population, we don’t really contribute to the intellectual development do we? We are lost in the midst of the desert because we haven’t got enough provision to sustain our notably reputed status. Have you wondered about this great                           

Alumni who is known in the west as Alpharabius? Alpharabius, or Al-Farabi for origin, is a prestigious Muslim author and philosopher. He substantially contributed to Islamic philosophy and literature, and he translated many textbooks and quotes of the great ancient philosopher, Aristotle. So, he took from extraneous sources and he added to them. As Muslims, we talk a lot about the past but, we tend to miss that we live in the present and we are defecating for the future. We always talk about our past but, that doesn’t help us in our present nor it will survive to attain future aspirations. We must recognize that. Our Ummah will rise again when we commence innovating and cease imitating. It’s the only solution we have to embrace in order to rise up again. We shouldn’t accept any compensatory  to that. We must have successful Muslim physicists, chemists,  mathematician's, astronomers, theologians, poets, professors, educators, doctors, engineers, journalists, artists, and competent instructors in all possible fields. Religion is not a barrier or     an obstacle which prevents sophistication. Whilst atheists and agnostics may disagree with me but, their argument is not based on scientifically attested evidence. It’s primarily based on a longstanding hostility with faith and a plain obstinacy with religiousness. Science and faith never contradict. If faith failed to recognize a scientific theory, that’s a lack of rationality. If science suggested the insignificance of faith, that’s a sense of pride and ego. Religion studies are essentially assorted to interdisciplinary development. They consist of both theological and intellectual analyses. In the contemporary western culture, religion has furiously been subjected to negative connotation which is essentially effected by medieval ages. It was that time of grave misery, loss and sorrow which is constantly associated with medieval era. However, it was that time when Muslims were ranked as the highest of high during their prosperity in

Andalusia. It was when Muslims sold their religion, so they were defeated. Therefore, religion has always been linked with misery for westerners whilst it’s affiliated with felicity for us. For over 900 years, we were ranked as the highest of high, contributing to both spiritual and secular spectrums, shaping one of the most extraordinary civilizations in human history. The Muslim conquest to Spain is considered invasion by our enemies. Despite what they think, I just want you to critically examine the history of Andalusia during our Islamic era. I want you to read how Muslims treated Jews and Christians, and how they were protected under the Muslim covenant in Andalusia. Well, it wasn’t just that. Muslim courageous equestrians had sacrificed themselves in a noble state of martyrdom to protect Jewish and Christian minorities. These facts are historically attested. Despite what protestant missionary activists are going to fallaciously proclaim. It’s quite common that protestant televangelists extremely enjoy assaulting Islam out of envy and detest. I will keep emphasizing on this decisive reality each time I compose an essay. It’s all about hate and detest. At the same time, I have Christian friends whom I truly consider my best friends. As Muslims, we have much work to do, and western media is also obliged to do many things. As Muslims, we must revive our spirit for knowledge and intellectual development. We must abandon simulating and commence innovating. We must import more than what we export and thus, that technically demands improving our  productivity ranking. We must critically assess what we can licitly take from the western culture versus  what we ought to leave. We also ought to build up  bridges of mutual collaboration on different levels. There are many positive instances to begin with. First of which is what is teleologically identified as the world of academia. I am quite fond of our religion being taught in academical proficiency rather than media based unilateral prejudice. I am fully prepared to optimally dissertate top worldwide orientalists. I claim to have quite convincing answers to their major concerns.